Young Philadelphians

Tony and his mother get behind the scenes help from Tony's real father a successful and politically connected Phila contractor who sounds an awful lot like the famous John Kelly (Grace Kelly's Grandfather). Once again the Irish immigrant class are working with a commitment to the future of their people and their family. The real father sees to it that Tony can afford Princeton and law school. And Dad keeps Tony's mother's secret. They even keep it from Tony himself.

Tony does some bad things. He gets suckered by his sweetheart's father when the lovers decide to marry before Tony has his law degree. So he loses the girl. Next he steals a a plum summer job out from under one of his college buddies to advance his own career.

Next Tony does some good things. His super influential summer employer's young wife thinks she is in love with Tony. Tony actually turns her down while making her feel good about the whole thing. He's learning to think on his back as well as his feet. And he uses his inherited Irish blarney to great effect.

Next he saves his old Princeton Buddy from a murder rap, earning the undying gratitude of a socially very important main line family. His original girl friend, good looking and also well connected, marries Tony after her husband is killed in Korea. She wanted him even though she thought he was a sell out. But when she watches him battle his way through a tough criminal rap, in a high risk situation, out of loyalty to his old pal, she stands with a look of admiration and says something like "you are the man. I'm yours for ever"

At that point I was wishing that I was Tony.


What I Want for Christmas...   December 7, 2003
Kelly (IL United States)
...is a copy of this movie.

A fifties black and white classic, this movie is everything movies used to be, but, sadly, are not today.

Who's Paul Newman? Sure, he's devastatingly handsome and burns up the screen as Tony, but it's Robert Vaughn who steals the show. His character, Chester, is riveting and achingly fleshed. 1959 Vaughn in a white dinner jacket...and the jail cell scene takes my breath away every time.

The soul of the movie is good triumping over evil, even if it takes good a while to get there. The meandering path the two heroes take on their journey to personal salvation makes us examine our own life choices.

You'll feel better about the human condition (not to mention lawyers) after watching this movie.


Cynical and sexy   January 8, 2003
Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com (...in Middle America)
A steamy "Peyton Place" style sex story, featuring Paul Newman as Tony Lawrence, an ambitous young man whose soul is twisted by his aristocratic family's unwillingness to let him marry for love. Forced to play the power game, he plays it to the hilt, cynically using his sex appeal and ruthlessness to bring ruin to anyone standing in his path. I'm sure they must have toned the film script down quite a bit from what the book was like, but it's still pretty raw. Plus, Newman was one sexy monkey when he was young... if you wanna see him at his shirtless, hunky best, then this is the film for you.


Paul Newman cuts the mustard in Philadelphia's cream   April 14, 1999
"The Young Philadelphians" is pure 1950s Hollywood gloss, replete with well-coiffed, young social aspirants (Paul Newman, Barbara Rush), fringe-dwelling wannabes (Robert Vaughn, uncharacteristically unkempt) and rough diamonds (Brian Keith), blended together under Vincent Sherman's by-the- book direction. Hollywood in 1958-9 was gingerly trying to avoid the whiff of McCarthyist hysteria by leading with its heart rather than its head; hence, "The Young Philadelphians". In its favour this film unearthed some genuine acting talent (Robert Vaughn) while reminding us of the great character actors of older times in Billie Burke's marvellously potty characterisation.

The major theme of this picture is personal redemption, as Newman's character Tony Lawrence ("one of THE Philadelphia Lawrences" as we are continually reminded) seeks to recapture self-respect and lost love, victims to a voracious value system which divides the haves and have nots into neat stereotypes. Tony loses his girl (Barbara Rush) to the wiles of the old order law elites, who suck him into the vortex of old money, and older prejudices. But Tony is also young, and has his own values - as displayed when the wife of his boss makes a play for him, only to be rebuffed by Tony's insistence on commitment, not casualness; an irony lost on the precocious legal eagle!

Later, this resolve is tested when Barabara Rush comes back into his life after her husband's death. Tony must tread warily, as his inconsistencies are now well known. Finally, Tony's own value system is put to the sword by family revelations of bastardry, discovering he is not in fact a Lawrence, but the son of an Irish businessman (Brian Keith), a friend and mentor throughout Tony's life, but who is outside the inner Philadelphia circle.

Thus, Tony must now earn his stripes, not rely on the club. He does this as only a lawyer can, through the stage of the courtroom. Robert Vaughn's Chester, Tony's lifelong friend but a social (and physical) outcast, provides the medium for Tony's final resolve: he must defend Chester against a murder charge. The acquittal provides the end point for the power plays which have constructed "Tony Lawrence". Chester is admitted into the "Philadelphia set", while Tony is reunited with both his moral self (and can genuinely regard himself as a "Lawrence", but on his terms), and his ethical self, realising the complex threads that bind the personal ties of his emotional life.

While there are moments of sincerity in this film, its failure to resolve its own moral dilemma undermines its inherent value as an expose of the consequences of personal indulgence. If Tony had been truly redeemed would he have returned to the Phildalephia fold, or would he have denied its apparent claims to authority and carved his niche outside of its strictures, say by rejecting the old firms for his own practice, or starting afresh in an area of HIS choosing? This has been resolved unsatisfactorily in light of the stance taken by Tony toward the controlling elites towards the film's end.

Postscript: Robert Vaughn's performance is a revelation. His impassioned plea to Tony to defend him on the murder charge is one of the most powerful scenes in this, or any other, film. Anyone only vaguely familiar with Vaughn through "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", should see this film to encounter an actor of great depth and believability.